Michael A. De Leon is a graphic designer by day, but wears many hats in his off time. In 2004, after several years of covering the Spurs, he started Project Spurs, a Spurs team fansite as an outlet to provide content to Spurs fans, while continuing to write for himself and learning the ins and outs of online publishing and web design. He has since built a writing team and started a popular weekly Spurs podcast called the Spurscast.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Robinson, Stern and the NBA: A Wasted Opportunity

“David Robinson represents for us the commitment to team, the principle and to community that we in the NBA find emblematic of what our players strive to be.” NBA Commissioner David Stern, May 1995.

These words were spoken by David Stern when he presented David Robinson the 1995 NBA MVP trophy. While those words ring true for Robinson, nothing could be further than the truth when speaking about the NBA at that time. During Robinson’s career, the NBA was suffering from an image problem and Stern, the NBA and sports companies failed to put Robinson at the forefront to cure this and to promote the right image not just for the NBA but for the entire world.

What was promoted and marketed during his time in the NBA flew in the face of Stern’s quote. Stern mentioned Robinson was emblematic of what the NBA players strive to be but instead we saw the Portland “Jail Blazers” and how they stole the spotlight because of the drama on and off the court.